Animal Uprising
by Abbalina
Summary: One Shot. The Animal Revolution from Mr. Jones' point of View.


Abigail Richardson

Mr. Jones woke to the sound of the rooster crowing outside. The call shattering any peace he may have had sleeping the night away. The drowsiness hung around his head like a thick fog that refused to dissipate. Groaning, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he blinked away the blurry film over his eyes. He didn't even bother with being quiet as he got out of the bed he shared with his wife; she needed to get up as well. They both had work to do on the farm.

Slowly as he got dressed for the day, he heard his wife stirring from her slumber. She always was the heavier sleeper. Soon she too was up and into her work clothes. Together they left the bedroom along with all thoughts of sleep. They had enough work to do without the thoughts of a comfy bed.

They parted ways at the kitchen, her going to the fridge and him out the door. He went around the farm feeding each of the animals in turn. He paused in his work to look around to the front of the farm, hearing tires crunch on the gravel. He sighed in relief as his workers arrived. Mr. Jones promptly turned on his heels and headed back towards the farm house.

Opening the door he caught the slight smell of eggs wafting from the kitchen. His wife, Maria, stood at the stove just scrambling the eggs. He passed directly behind her passing by to get to the fridge. Opening it up, his eyes quickly sought his beloved drink. Reaching into the ice box, he drew out the cold bottle. He popped off the cap and was about to take of swig of beer, when a hand smacked his shoulder.

"Alexander! You shouldn't be drinking that so early in the morning, it's unhealthy!" Maria exclaimed, frying pan hovering in hand over freshly finished eggs.

"Don't you go nagging me Mar, I'll drink whenever I please." He took one of the plates of eggs defiantly bringing the bottle to his lips.

Mrs. Jones huffed "Well then!" she said sarcastically. "I'll have you know that I was just giving you fair warning before you have to go dragging your drunken butt all around the farm. Those boys can't do _all_ the work now can they?"

"They're my employees and I _employed _them to work on this farm for me."

"They aren't paid _nearly_ enough to deal with a lazy old drunk such as yourself" Maria commented as she sat down next to her husband.

"Maria, I'm paying them as much as I can. That lawsuit nearly did it in for us."

Her eyes saddened at his words and she leaned over to give a kiss on his cheek. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rested her head on his collar bone.

"I know its hard honey, but we play the hand we're dealt with. That's no excuse to go and drown yourself in beer everyday!"

Mr. Jones roughly shrugged out from under his wife's arms to stand well away from her. He took a deep breath, as if to calm himself. He turned back to Maria to point a finger accusingly.

"You have NO right to tell me what's cause and what's not!"

" . . . Alex . . ." She said quietly.

"NO Maria! Just stop right there." Alex shouted, snatching up his bottle. Alexander stormed out the door, slamming it closed behind him with a bang. He didn't notice her flinch. He most certainly didn't notice her weeping quietly into her hands.

.

Mr. Jones didn't quite realize when finishing his second beer turned into finishing his eighth. He'd be working with his men occasionally drinking from his current bottle when it would run out. When one ran out, he found another to cloud his mind.

'Perhaps it's not the safest to be working with these animals while intoxicated' Alex thought somewhere in the back of his mind. The forefront of his thought process was tremendously less coherent.

As the day wore on, the fog settling over Alex got thicker and thicker. He also didn't realize when he went full on drunk out of his mind either. Though he had to guess that it was sometime around when Christian, one of his more _responsible_ workers, firmly took away the bottle has was about to pop open.

"Alright Mr. Jones, I think you've had quite enough for today" Christian placed the beer back into the cooler as he grasped his employers arm, leading him back to the farmhouse. The sun hung low in the sky, just barely dipping below the horizon, casting a red-orange dye, bleeding across the blue.

At the back door to the farmhouse, Christian let go of Mr. Jones' arms.

"I think you can make it from here. I've got to head home but I hope that you have a nice night."

Alexander huffed and rolled his eyes at Christian, "See you tomorrow Mr. Jones."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He kicked off his boots and angrily slammed the door shut. Walking into the house he noticed that Maria wasn't around, though he wasn't going to go look for her anytime soon. He was _way _too drunk for that. She'd probably skin him alive for working with "dangerous machinery" and "needy animals" while "heavily intoxicated". That being said, maybe he wasn't drunk _enough_ to go looking through the house for his wife; if she was going to brutally harm him, he might as well get it over with since he'd be too drunk to remember the next day .

Alexander walked over to the fridge pulling out yet another beer. Settling down on the couch he popped off the cap and turned on the T.V. Taking a long drink he sighed, this plan was much better; wait for her to find him too drunk off his butt for her to really do anything.

It was well after dark that he realized that Maria probably was already in bed. So, on that drunken conclusion he finished off the remainder of his beer and staggered up the stars to their room. Opening their door he could clearly hear her snoring radiate throughout the room. It was a wonder he hadn't heard it from downstairs.

Swaying, Alexander got out of his work clothes and into night wear with difficulty he would admit to no one. Crawling into bed next to his lovely wife, his snores joined hers seconds after his head hit the pillow. His overtaxed mind gladly letting go of consciousness.

.

It was well after midnight when he awoke again though. The animals. He was going to _kill _them. At least then they would stop making so much noise at such the hour. He wasn't the only one to be stirred by the ruckus. Groggily, Maria sat up groaning as she did so.

"What in Lords name are they doing?"

"I don't know, but I'm getting my gun." He answered. His head was absolutely _pounding_ with pain. All he really wanted was for those stinking animals to pipe down so that he could sleep.

"You better go check if there's a fox or something."

"I know I know "He grumbled, stumbling out of the room and down the stairs.

Stalking out the door, he took aim at the barn. The source of that _dang_ noise! The gunshot sliced through the noise of animals and sent wood splinters soaring. Whatever had been going on certainly wasn't anymore.

Nodding in satisfaction, he turned to get much needed sleep. His hangover was killing him. Did he care if there was potentially a fox still in there? Not particularly. As long as they were quiet about it they could be eaten for all he cared.

All that mattered at the moment was himself and that bed waiting for him upstairs.

.

Mr. Jones could feel it hanging in the air. Un-spoken. Non-dissipating. Intense. He was at a complete loss for words. The animals were more difficult than usual. Whenever working with them he felt as though he was handling a bomb about to go off. Unstable. Volatile. Cynical. He had absolutely _no_ idea what caused the change.

It had been going on for awhile now. Ever since that pig died, what was the name? Willingdon Beauty. That's right. That's when he first saw it. That's when he saw the change in the animals. That was months ago; it's June now. Perhaps he should have seen it coming.

That particular day Mr. Jones had skipped out on farm work to go to a bar. When he came back he took a nice nap on the sofa, only to be woken by loud crashing noises coming from the store-shed. He promptly shot out of the house, joining his employees by arming themselves with whips.

They stomped over to the source of the sound. Peering inside they saw the animals gorging themselves with the food stored in there. Anger bubbled and boiled over inside of Alexander, in fact, steam could practically be seen shooting out of his ears. Alex lashed out with his whip in every direction. His men fallowed suit in punishing the animals.

He didn't see which animal struck out first. Even if he _did_ it wouldn't have done any good. That bomb that he had felt like he was holding suddenly went off. The animals fought back. The animals _never _fought back. They were _animals _for goodness sake.

They were winning too.

There was just too many of them. Animals that hadn't even been involved in the first place suddenly joined. The animosity was staggering. The animals attacked from every side hitting the men with a barrage of bites, kicks, and claws. So when he saw an opening, he happily took it.

He had no choice but to retreat.

Mr. Jones and his workers fled down the cart path leading out of the farm. The animals closed the gates with a thunderous _CLANG_.

Catching his breath, Alexander spun around franticly, searching the farm from his vantage point, looking for any sign of his wife being harassed by animals as well.

"Alex!" He heard a cry from off to the side. Turning, he saw Maria running toward them with bags in hand. Letting them fall to the ground, she threw her arms around her husband.

"I saw you running and came as quickly I could. I grabbed as much as I could carry."

"They didn't hurt you did they?"

"I'm fine. I slipped out the back; none of them saw me."

They separated, with Maria still clutching his hand, he could feel her tremble slightly. Running his free hand through his hair, he broke the silence.

"It's a full blown uprising."

"What are we going to do?" Maria looked sharply at him. "Our whole life is here."

He smiled lightly squeezing her hand reassuringly.

"Don't you worry Mar. I don't know what we're going to do; I wish I could tell you differently but I can't." He looked back at the farm "We'll find something. We'll be okay, I promise."


End file.
